Received my AP today, after a few attempts our heroes were able to make it out of the terrible swamp and i thought it might be good to recap my experience and create a place for others to share theirs.

I played with a friend. I used the Gandalf-Elrond-Glorfindel deck i was running through the road darkens with because i didnt want to hold up our playing time with making a new deck. My friend used a silvan Haldir, Legolas, Celeborn deck armed with the new archer ally and bow. 1st play through ended fairly quick. Our first stage 2 was "a forgotten land" where we could only play 1 card a round. Didnt seem so terrible on turn one when we didnt really have the resources to play cards anyway, but as we got behind on questing and locations, we were unable to play enough cards to counter the encounter decks response by the time we had switched stages we were already landlocked with a myriad of effects hindering us it was useless. Onto attempt 2. Second time we realized questing hard was really the way to go. The quest feels like one of the more classic LOTR quests where low threat and will power go a long way. Since we realized there are only 7 enemies aside from the ancient guardian, we felt more comfortable sending most of our characters on the quest. (and the swamp adder has a decently high engagement level at 35 which helps) Our stage 2 was much better too, started at "no end in sight" where we could not use player cards to gain resources or draw cards neither of which was overly detrimental. We were able to pass that stage before the time ran out. Our stage 3 was the impassable marshland which might be the worst of the 3 options giving each location plus 1 threat. We struggled to make enough progress especially with the treachery that adds 2 to a locations travel points popping along the way. In the meantime the ancient marsh dweller started getting pretty huge eventually getting up to 6 resource tokens before we felt comfortable engaging him and taking him out. We ended up traveling to "a treacherous swamp" quest stage twice in a row which wasnt terrible with only alowing 5 characters per player to refresh. After we finally passed that the end encounter was the ancient marsh dweller again was quite simple and we defeated him with ease

Recap: Really enjoyed the quest, felt old-school with the emphasis on willpower and the harsh punishment for high threat (Nalir and his terrible effect accompany you again and unlike trouble in tharbad there are no quest mechanics that make his threat increase easier to bear...infact its quite the opposite as you need to raise your threat on every quest stage change). The encounter cards really combo together in a terrible yet satisfying way that still made it a challenge especially playing the first time and not having a sound strategy. The ancient marsh dweller can get nasty but is easily dealt with as he's not immune to player cards or anything so once you're set up you can chump then take him out without issue.

Let me know if you have questions on the quest and share your experiences too

To be honest I dont really interesting with that quest since I pretty sure that quest like a most of the quest of that cycle we forget very quick. Dunland trap was ok but after all quest looks boring for me. Players card is ok but for quest I will wait until nightmare will come. Just only interesting about last one for now since is always awesome.

After briliant and powerful players cards in Road Darkens this cycle looks like walk in the park!

Plenty of questions considering no one has posted any encounter spoilers even though quite a handful of people seem to have the quest now...

What are the effects of the other various stage 2 and stage 3 quest cards you didn't encounter?

What other enemies are there other than the swamp adder, ancient one and neeker breekers?

Is the Nalir ally identical? (exact same effect and art)

Was Sinking Bog (the one that punishes you for item attachments) much of a threat/hassle or fairly easy to overcome?

Thanks heaps for the overview by the way. Don't mean to sound rude or anything with the first line of my text I'm just sick of spoilers taking so long to come out for this game all the time even when lots of people actually already have the cards. Other than a few key people no one really bothers to put spoilers up and everyone just keeps stuff to themselves. I know if I ever get my hands on a pack before spoilers are up I'll personally take pics of every card and put them up. Living in Australia this will never happen though. Many thanks to those who do describe quests and post spoilers for this game like Beorn and yourself and the grey company guys.

@psychorocka

For stage 2, each of the 3 stages all have 13 quest points, raise your threat once revealed and have a time 3 effect of forcing you to advance to a different stage 2 (you lose all progress). The unqiue effects are:

Each player cannot play more than 1 card each round

player card effects cannot be used to gain resources or draw cards

in order to commit characters to the quest a player must first discard a card at random from his hand

For stage 3 each stage when revealed raises your threat by 1 and adds the ancient marsh dweller to the staging area (regardless of if its out of play or engaged w/a player) and heals all damage to it. Each stage has 16 quest points with a time 3 forced effect of traveling to a different stage. the unique effects are:

Each player cannot ready more than 5 characters during the refresh phase

each enemy in the staging area gets -20 engagement cost

each location in play gets +1 threat

And then for what its worth the 4th stage returns the marsh dweller to the staging area again and it makes an attack against each player. It requires no progress and after you kill the dweller you win. Has a time 2 effect of having the dweller making an immediate attack against each player.

Nalir is exactly the same in every way (really hoping we ditch him in the next quest ha)

There are no other enemies. 1 copy of the marsh dweller, 4 of the adder, and 3 of the neekerbreekers. Worth mentioning that that the encounter set itself is pretty small. Only other set it uses is the "weary travelers" one which only had 3 different treacheries.

Sinking Bog's hassle factor has a large part to do with your own deck construction (aka how many items you run). For the most part items are weapons or armor so you're not really attaching them to your questing characters which is the main concern. The defense and attack reductions stink, but once you get enough allies out you wont need to worry about it. For example my friend had Haldir decked out with the new bow and rivendell blade...but had a -2 ATK because of it so it basically negated the effect of one of the items, so our original plan of killing the dweller while he sat in the staging area didnt work, but since there are only a handful of enemies if you have a few attacking characters you're ok. I think its best to probably just let that location sit in the staging area and deal with it. The key to this quest is questing hard and fast so with 1 threat level but 5 travel points and the fact the ability doesnt stack, it can be overcome

Awesome answers, thanks heaps man! Quest sounds AMAZING regardless of difficulty, cannot wait to get my hands on it =)

I remember thnking Trouble in Tharbad was brutal when I saw the cards before actually playing the quest, so I'll reserve my judgement there, and just say that you'll need a lot Test of Will for it. Another thing, in the lore the Nin-in-Eilph was called Swanfleet because there were a lot of swans. Sounds like a very peaceful and nice place to me. Does any of the art depict or show any swans? I know this is supposed to be a challenging scenario and all and obviously they wouldn't make any swan enemies, but I hope that for once they showed some of the gentler aspects of Middle Earth and not just orcs and dangerous places and eldritch creatures...

By foul craft, Saruman has bred swans with Goblin men...

The result is most terrifying.

Haven't seen any swans.

That's a thematic bummer.

When was it called Swanfleet though? During the second age? Plenty of time for marsh to develop and turn into a bog if so.

Hmm, I don't know, but I will just assume those ancient marsh dwellers ate them all.

The Swanfleet ( Sindarin for Nîn-in-Eilph) was a marshy area in Eriador .

Formed where the Glanduin (mistakenly labelled as "Swanfleet river" on some maps) joined the Mitheithel (Greyflood), the Swanfleet was effectively an inland delta, with uncertain streams and a very uncertain difference between land and water.

It was about fifty miles in length from west to east and over twenty-five miles from north and south.

It strongly resembled the Gladden Fields on the other side of Misty Mountains (Hithaeglir) and as such many Stoors felt right at home here after their migration into Eriador. These Stoors remained here until the Great Plague nearly wiped them out, and the remainder then went to the Southfarthing of the Shire .

Near the Swanfleet was a ford over the Glanduin, from where led a road to the ruins of Ost-in-Edhil , the ruined city of Eregion .

from here: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Swanfleet

Doesn't sound like a pleasant place!

So after three play throughs I think this quest is fairly easy. You can turtle stage two in order to blast through three and four quickly. It's probably the easiest quest of the cycle including the VoI box. Some good player cards though so I'm not disappointed by any means.

Fun quest! I brought decks that were a bad fit for it and still almost won, so it's not terribly hard, but it was nice and thematic. The quest cards and locations make it feel like you're struggling to progress through a swamp, and the Marsh Dweller gets nasty in a hurry, especially if you're drawing treacheries that remove time counters. Fun, middle of the road quest for when you feel like playing something that has good theme and a little bit of everything

Let's see some more multi-player reports because that often shifts things (makes it harder)

I'll be playing two handed when I get it and will report my findings

I've played this quest a number of times with a number of different decks, and I'm having a really tough time beating it. Even with threat reduction in the decks I have been threating out, or heroesq die because of treacheries. The encounter deck can punish you for having lots of allies, it can also mess up attachment deck strategies too. Each stage 2 effect always messes up my plans. And getting to stage 3 can also be problematic especially when enemies might get - 20 engagement cost.

I have not tried any of the real power decks on it, but I don't believe this scenario is super easy. It's got a small encounter deck that's pretty unpredictable in how each game will play out with the changing scenario cards. Overall, I find it interesting, and am having a challenge coming up with a good deck solution, but maybe I'm just rusty. I have not tried a silvan deck on It yet, but I'm thinking Galadriel hero will make a big difference on this one for me.

I've played this quest a number of times with a number of different decks, and I'm having a really tough time beating it. Even with threat reduction in the decks I have been threating out, or heroesq die because of treacheries. The encounter deck can punish you for having lots of allies, it can also mess up attachment deck strategies too. Each stage 2 effect always messes up my plans. And getting to stage 3 can also be problematic especially when enemies might get - 20 engagement cost.

I have not tried any of the real power decks on it, but I don't believe this scenario is super easy. It's got a small encounter deck that's pretty unpredictable in how each game will play out with the changing scenario cards. Overall, I find it interesting, and am having a challenge coming up with a good deck solution, but maybe I'm just rusty. I have not tried a silvan deck on It yet, but I'm thinking Galadriel hero will make a big difference on this one for me.

Wow. I've only tried one deck (superhero attachments), but I really didn't think it was very hard. Now I'm worried I missed something...

This, quest looks really easy to be honest…. More problem is looks boring. To be honest I dont really like any quest of that cycle….. Last cycle was amazing , that cycle sounds like a step back in quality. VOI deluxe still ok but from lasy cycle I really likw only Dunland trap. Very unique quest but after first one next quests looks boring for me…. Even nightmare cannot really change it since idea and story dont make me existing. Wait for next cycle actually

What's your opinion on the Three Trials, Glaurung?

I haven't beat it yet but have only tried Celeborn/Haldir/Legolas. Not enough willpower. I'm glad it's not too easy to start off.

What's your opinion on the Three Trials, Glaurung?

Not so bad but nothing really special. We still love and play second and third cycle quest or even core set quest ( like Anduin) but im pretty sure this cycle quests will be quickly forgoten. Imho anyway

The quest is difficult and requires special deckbuilding. For solo play, Eleanor is a good choice as you can build her up as a defender, and she can also negate all the nasty effects of the treachery cards. However, I don't think that the encounter deck is too difficult to handle, but thequest card effects can be brutal, if you don't have a fitting deck. Building a mono sphere deck sems to help to master stage 2. I made one with lore and tactics, and both are able to get you out of the swamps regularly.

The quest is difficult and requires special deckbuilding. For solo play, Eleanor is a good choice as you can build her up as a defender, and she can also negate all the nasty effects of the treachery cards. However, I don't think that the encounter deck is too difficult to handle, but thequest card effects can be brutal, if you don't have a fitting deck. Building a mono sphere deck sems to help to master stage 2. I made one with lore and tactics, and both are able to get you out of the swamps regularly.

I would agree with leptokurt's assessment - I haven't found the encounter deck itself too difficult, its the quest card effects that are making the scenario hard for me to beat. The 2A stage that limits you to only one card per round is particularly tough. If you play an ally or an attachment that means no response cards later in the round (Test of Will, Sneak Attack come to mind). Location control is also important once again, as the locations either have pretty high threat (many are 3) or a high quest point amount to clear (4 or 5 points). The locations in and of themselves aren't particularly bad but the limitations of the various 2A cards can make them far more difficult to clear than they ordinarily would. I find myself getting location-locked as a result because the quest card effects prevent me from getting through them.

I've been playing the scenario strictly one-handed but should have a chance to play it multi-player later this week. It'll be interesting to see how it plays with more players.

Yes, I agree with the above. Encounter deck does not look like any thing to difficult, although certain cards can be problematic, but quest cards are what make the scenario more difficult, and the random order of the quest cards can make each game different making strategies for winning a bit different each game. I have not played it since my last post, but when I get a chance again I'm going to run Eleanor in the line-up.